Structured Settlement Annuity Guide: What it Is & How it Works

A Structured-Settlement Annuity (SSA) provides tax free, regular payments over a specific time period, which is specially made to match an injured party’s requirements. Specialized advisors negotiate the construction of this, in addition to helping to design and facilitate the resolution procedure.

Structured Settlement Annuity: How it Works

A structured settlement is basically an arrangement under which an insurer agrees to pay a predetermined sum of money under a fixed period of time. Very straightforward, but of course, there’s more. The files created in a structured settlement contain a qualified assignment, an understanding, an annuity program, usually a court ruling, and an annuity coverage.

Payments to get a structured-settlement annuity may be produced for the length of the existence of the claimant. The sum paid can constitute equal payments, lump sums, and payments of varying sums of money.

So that you can make sure that the payments stay tax free, the construction of payments shouldn’t be changed once it is agreed upon by both parties. If one so chooses, the responsibility can be transferred by the insurer making the payment to a 3rd party.

You will find problems before choosing a structured settlement arrangement that one should attempt to comprehend. For example, they may be free from income-tax, but subject to estate tax if repayments are assigned to an estate.

National and state laws regulate the closure of a structured-settlement. The closure procedure generally gets finished in 3-6 months. National laws stipulate that the court order be obtained by the client so there are no tax liabilities, or the financing business which is buying the payment flow.

A disclosure declaration is provided between two and three weeks before the transfer arrangement is received. Payment is commenced by the financing firm after getting a a court ruling and recognizing the assignment. The payments begin 30-45 days following the reception of the court ruling.

Is Investing in Structured Settlement Annuities Smart?

Generally, the chance for “high return” (at least in accordance with the current rates of interest) and “no threat” is a red-flag warning. However, the truth is that with structured-settlement annuity investing, the yields that are greater can be a lower hazard; the attractive yield relative to low-risk fixed-income investments isn’t due to increased danger, but rather due to liquidity that is quite poor. Which signifies such expense choices can possibly be a means to create yields that are higher, or a liquidity premium, although perhaps not through a risk premium.

The caveat to structured-settlement annuities, nevertheless, is that the investments are not quite so fluid. They likely should, at best, just be considered a tiny part of one’s portfolio.

Investing Into a Structured-Settlement Annuity

In the end, most yields that appear “too-good to be true” for their hazard actually are too good, and entail higher-risk than what’s first evident. Yet because of the exceptional manner in which structured-settlement annuities function, the truth is that returns aren’t really a high-risk premium, and instead can be considered a low-risk reduced liquidity premium.
It can be useful to review just exactly what a structured-settlement is so that we may understand why.

Typical Conditions Of Structured Settlement – Cash and Prices Flow Yields
What exactly does this look like in the investor’s viewpoint? No two structured settlement annuity investment options will be exactly the same because each structured settlement was organized for the winning plaintiff’s specific situation.

So how exactly does the yield function with such unusual payments? In the investor’s standpoint, this can be just like purchasing. And so the yield is not unlawful, but it is not similar in any way to the continuing cash flows from a 5% savings bond.

The Illiquidity Risk Premium Of Purchasing Structured Settlements

So are the yields as high as they’re said to be? The annuity payments are usually backed by insurance companies which are expected to have almost no danger of outright annuity payment default (after all, that is what the initial structured settlement payment receiver was counting on for those payments in the very first place).

It’s just as well then, that the payments are usually ensured and fixed to specific dates; unlike lifetime annuitization that planners might be more comfortable with, the payments from structured settlements usually aren’t life contingent (meaning the payments will continue even if the initial annuity expires). The returns are due to illiquidity that is absolute.

Where does this fit in for the fiscal planning customer? The internal rate of return on many structured settlement payments are quite appealing in the current market; speeds of 4% are quite common (although notably, that is not an enormous spread relative to the yield on similar long-term bonds). But most customers are unlikely to discover a structured settlement which actually supplies cash flows that line up with precisely when the customer may desire them. Which means at best, this should just be performed using a small enough part of the portfolio that it will not create a liquidity issue for the investor. What this means is a buyer who becomes a seller will probably experience a loss of their very own, as they basically combine both sides of what’s an extremely broad bid ask spread. Which means to say the least, this is for “long term cash” only!

It is worth noting too that structured settlement annuity investing isn’t simply something that customers are being solicited for. Nevertheless, this requires the agent/dealer to review and approve the offering (so the registered representative does not get in trouble for selling). And in practice, it appears that broker/ dealers are combined on these offerings.

On the flip side, one reason for the cause of the high yields in structured settlement annuity investing is because there are so few investors involved that the marketplace is extremely illiquid and ineffective. In theory, if there were multiple firms competing to get a structured settlement recipient’s payments, there would be more competition. This would lead to an increased cost that both gives more cash to the seller and supplies lower (more competitive) returns for the investor.

Finally, structured settlement annuity investing is limited in how far it can go. However, there’s certainly some capacity constraint in how much this unique investment strategy can grow. For the time being, though, the returns would imply that seller demand surpasses buyer interest.